Luka, heir of Harden and maybe the sport

If you believe that pressure unlocks greatness, the Mavericks relying on Doncic so heavily might just be getting us there sooner.

Good morning. Let’s basketball.

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Was this one of the greatest regular season performances of the modern era? Luka Doncic against the Knicks: 60 points on 21/31 shooting (16/22 from the line), 21 rebounds, 10 assists and 2 steals. Those 60 points included a deeply improbable game-tying shot with a second left in regulation to complete a 9-point (literally) last-minute comeback. Not recorded in the box score: Luka’s deeply funny celebratory dance after making that shot.

There’s just so much to unpack here. Let’s start here: per Basketball-Reference’s Stathead database, four other players have ever recorded 60 points and 20 rebounds in a regular season game: George Mikan did it once in 1952, Elgin Baylor did it twice in the early ‘60s, Shaq did it once in 2000 and Wilt Chamberlain did it 28 times. So if you saw Luka’s box score and thought, “Those are Wilt Chamberlain numbers,” well, you were right.

Almost right, actually: Wilt never went 60-20 with 10 assists. No one has. In fact, there’s ever only been one other regular season 60-point triple-double: James Harden’s 60-10-11 performance against the Magic five years ago.

The similarities between Luka and Harden are jolting, though Doncic is certainly better younger than Harden was. The Beard picked up his inaugural first team All-NBA honor at age 24. Luka turns 24 in a couple months, and will almost assuredly nab his fourth first team All-NBA honor this season. Another difference here is that the current NBA paradigm — or the meta in gamer parlance — is more open and free than it was during Harden’s peak. As such, Harden’s ball-dominance and shot-jacking felt more prominent, often to the reputational detriment of Harden, in that era. (Which was, to be sure, a few years ago.) The freer, high-usage-players-everywhere meta right now makes Luka’s ball dominance stand out less, though it still stands out. He’s not the only one playing like this, whereas Harden was.

There’s one more difference that will become relevant soon enough: Harden has almost never stepped up in the postseason or in clutch moments. The ability to do so — including in this comeback — is a core tenet of Luka’s lore already. In a decade when it’s really time to talk about legacy, I suspect that will stand out as a positive in the discourse around Luka.

Tim MacMahon @espn_macmahon

NBA teams were 0-13,884 in the last 20 seasons when trailing by at least nine with 35 or fewer seconds remaining, per @ESPNStatsInfo. Luka Doncic and the Mavs pulled off a miracle.

Anyway, this is a magical performance that will surely register with media voters when they start seriously considering the MVP race (Tim Bontemps’ December straw poll had Luka third a couple weeks ago behind Jayson Tatum and Giannis Antetokounmpo). Sure, it’s one of 82 games. But a performance like that gets seared into your brain.

It was also a performance that was wholly necessary at home against a good Knicks team that was, nonetheless, missing its best guard (Jalen Brunson) and which lost its best wing (RJ Barrett) in the opening minutes. In other words, that the Mavericks needed a Wilt-like performance to get to overtime is a strong indicator of just how much pressure is on Luka to do everything for this team to be competitive. (In fairness to the Mavericks, Dorian Finney-Smith and Josh Green were out, and Maxi Kleber has been out a while.)